No Such Thing

Do you remember that time that
we went down to the riverside and
you pulled my hair to the side
so that you could look directly into my eyes?
It was as if time stopped.
It was just one moment –
it was all that we got
before the pain of reality
sunk back in
and your eyes
sunk back in
to your skin
the flesh: it was drawn tight
across the bones
with all the memories
you would fight
of the way that
things were sinking in and
we were giving in to
the needle pinprick
sinking in
to the skin thick with
all the scars reminiscent
of the unforgiven sins
we would commit.

We had to forgive ourselves
but we just couldn’t win
we were sinners
sunk like battleships
far beyond the last dinner.
We hadn’t eaten in days, weeks, hours:
it was uncertain which way we would devour
all the games that we would play
just to pretend to feel something.
We had to pretend just to feel something
We were slaves.
Slaves to a way of being we
gave in to the life
We surrendered to the knife
in the form of a tiny metal spike
it just felt so right the way
that our feeble hearts would beat
in our chest
we were together but
always apart
from the start.
We sat on the same pieces of plywood
on the same concrete floor
And we would cry.
Why? Why would they do this to us?
Never stopping to think that
it wasn’t they that was doing this to us
It was us that was on the brink.

No one held the keys to our freedom but us
it was the cold steel that would become freeing as we went numb.
It was us that was imprisoned.
We willingly entered the abandoned concrete cell
and pushed aside all those who tried to drag us from this hell we
climbed the broken pieces drowning further in abyss.
And we smiled as the cold steel kissed our bloody lips
while the rats and the lice danced in delight laughing,
while we died by candlelight.
I looked at you night after night
by the flickering flame whittled down
It was just $1 for 3 candles
but they were our lifeline
to something other than the darkness
We lived like rats in the darkness:
even the albino rats in the corner
were brighter than the whites of our eyes.
Your skin it was grey with your suicide
turned homicide
Cyanide kills quicker than
the drops of blood dripping down my thighs.
It was a murder scene every time,
I looked into your eyes,
I remembered being down by that riverside,
I fantasized, about you pulling my hair to the side,
so that you could look directly into my eyes.
It was as if time stopped.

But every time I looked into my eyes
It was nothing but beady
dark black bullets looking back at me
down the barrel of a gun
I was looking down the barrel of a plastic gun
I loaded it up and stuck it in because
I don’t believe the son of God
was killed for my sins
and there is no such fucking thing
as redemption.

As the rains came,
the bones rose
from the window pane
we watched as though
puppets of the grand parade
were stripped of their earthly clothes.
The spirits gathered round
dancing in a spectacular mockery
of the way we were romancing
with something we could not understand
see our sins washed away
by the blood of Mary’s little lamb.

One, two, three, turn four
load it up you little whore
who you are you will be no more
we’ll dance and play you to the graveyard door.

One, two, three, turn four
load it up you little whore
who you are you will be no more
we’ll dance and play you to the graveyard door.

When you sit by candlelight for months on end
you will know that for some
there is no such fucking thing as redemption.
All of my friends are dead.